


Slow Burn

by lonelywalker



Category: Brimstone
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of Milton, sex, and baseball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Burn

In the corner of the library, something is burning. A sharp orange flame licks the edges of yellowed paper, charring the cover. Smoke wafts into the air. Well-thumbed pages crackle and hiss as they burn. But Ezekiel Stone pretends not to notice at all, only observing the flickering brightness out of the corner of his eye, as he coughs and re-crosses his legs against the carrel in front of him.

“ _Fahrenheit 451_ ,” the Devil says cheerfully, holding the book at arm’s length between two long fingers. “A predictable choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.” He shudders (or, rather, gives a very theatrical performance of a shudder, since it is entirely for Zeke’s benefit). “I’m growing far too banal, Ezekiel. I must be spending too much time with you. Then again…” He gets to his feet, and comes to stand over Zeke’s shoulder, still holding the burning book, which drops charred flakes into Zeke’s lap. “A detective in a library. That _is_ rather unexpected.”

Unable to ignore him any longer, Zeke snaps his own book closed, and thumps his feet down to the ground, hurriedly dusting ash from his legs. “It’s Sunday. Don’t you take the day off?”

The Devil looks at him blankly. “From what?”

“Annoying me would be a start.” Zeke grabs the burning book, and puts out the fire, smothering the pages against the varnished wood of the carrel. “Shouldn’t you be turning wine to water or something more traditional?”

“Parlor tricks,” the Devil sighs. “The work of a child. Besides, when time and space are both illusory concepts, the idea of Sunday seems a little… I don’t know… Pathetic? You have a job to be done, Ezekiel. You work for me. And our contract does not include time spent idling your days away in a library, of all places. What is this…” He flips over Zeke’s book with an air of amusement. “Milton. Ah. And just when I was talking about being predictable.”

“Thought you would like it. He says some nice things about you.”

The Devil pats down his jacket, searching for his lighter. “Hmmm. Well, that may be true, but I wouldn’t hire him as a biographer. A deeply troubled man. In fact,” he says, eying Zeke, “not unlike you, in some ways. Although I daresay he has the larger vocabulary. I’ll have to introduce you. He has _revised_ his opinions, somewhat, since he really got to know me.”

Zeke rolls his eyes. There’s little point in taking the bait and quivering in fear. “Milton’s in hell?”

“All the best people are,” the Devil says, in all seriousness, and winks. "Speaking of which, you have yet another of my beloved, wayward children to return home, Ezekiel. How many is it now? I must say, we're having quite a family reunion downstairs. They've had a very warm welcome."

"Seriously?" Zeke sits down again, grabbing back his book. "That's all you've got for me? I'm the one with all the tattoos. Do you think I'm going to forget about any of them?"

"Well, some _are_ hard to see... particularly now that you don't have the delightful Lieutenant Ash to watch your back. Or Detective Kane, for that matter. You do seem to love authority figures, don't you, Ezekiel?"

Zeke drops the book on the carrel, and rounds on him. "You don't have anything else to do? Nothing? Whole vastness of time and space, and all you can find to do is... what? Insinuate that I like guys, is that it?"

Cinder-black eyebrows are raised. "I know for a fact that you've been thinking about _my_ ass ever since we met, Ezekiel."

"I've been thinking about hot pokers too," Zeke says. "Want me to draw you a diagram?"

He's been expecting that telltale rush of air for a while now, the hiss that tells him his immortal employer has set off for more ethereal locales, but it doesn't come. The Devil is still very much here, and still very much looking at him. Zeke has to resist the impulse to reach out and prod him with a finger.

"Is this it?" he asks, finally. "Really? You've been around since, when, the beginning of time -"

" _Almost_ the beginning of time."

"- and the best thing you have to do is torment me, and set up this ridiculous task..."

The Devil is shaking his head, sadly. "Ezekiel, ridiculous or not, it's-"

"My last hope at life on earth. Right. And _completely_ impossible."

" _Almost_ impossible." The Devil pulls out a chair that may or may not have been there before, and sits down next to him with the air of an understanding, if vaguely lecherous, college professor. "You have to see how _reasonable_ I am. I have given you a chance. Restore a mere 113 souls to my loving embrace, and you will be returned to the land of the living. No catch. However, were you to succeed... Well. You might have another 35 years to live, and the task God would set you during those years? That really _would_ be impossible. And soon you and I would be having our little chats once more." He beams. "Everyone wins! Apart from you, of course."

"The task _God_ would set me?" Zeke narrows his eyes, trying to catch the Devil's often elusive train of thought. "I get to meet God, too?"

"You really are slow, aren't you? It's the old game. The entrance exam for the afterlife. They used to weigh your heart, did you know that? Now it's more like the SATs. From poetry to paperwork... You can guess that I was at least partly responsible for that one."

Zeke sighs, settling back in his chair. They've been through this argument before, with accompanying flashbacks and references to Jimmy Stewart movies. "You don't think I can get into Heaven." It's not even a question anymore.

The Devil shrugs. "Who can? Especially not _now_. Really, Ezekiel. You are one of the few, the blessed, who know without a shadow of a doubt that life after death exists. There is a Hell. There is, well, some kind of Heaven. I can't say I've been there in a while. Who knows what they've done with the place? But, in any case, knowing that, knowing the fire and brimstone that awaits you, the question is: could you lead an entirely good life?"

"Of course I-"

"No pork," the Devil interrupts. "No shellfish, no early morning sessions in the shower with your hand and the KY. And I assume you'll just be _racing_ to put all those adulteresses and homosexuals to death, hm? Also, there's something in here about selling your children as slaves..." A Bible now in hand, the Devil starts to leaf through it.

Zeke has the feeling that, yet again, he's on a hiding to nothing. "That's not... That's not God."

"But it _is_ , Ezekiel. The word of God himself. And if it isn't, well, isn't that worse? No study text. No crib notes. Oh no!" The Devil busily pretends to chew his nails in horror. "Who _knows_ what might be on the final exam."

Zeke can't help but smile, wagging a finger. "But your... That angel. He said that I was doing good work. That I had another chance."

"Oh, _him_. He'd say anything. He's the divine equivalent of a Mouseketeer. A teenybopper. All saccharine sweetness and no substance. I keep hoping he's got a future of drug abuse and embarrassing disco anthems ahead of him." The Devil cocks his head to the side. "Besides, Ezekiel, I wouldn't worry. Heaven's no place for an interesting soul like yourself."

"I thought you wanted to go back," Zeke said. "Redemption, and all of that?"

The Devil looks horrified. "What? No! It's an overrated retirement home for people you never even wanted to speak to much when they were alive. Don't scare me like that, Ezekiel."

"And what about God?" Zeke presses a little further. "You loved God."

"Oh, who didn't?" The Devil gets up from his seat, pulling a face. "It's like your high school girlfriend, Ezekiel. Perfect at the time but, let's face it. It was never going to last."

"But you were _good_ once."

"I was boring."

Zeke has to grin - it's rare that he gets to see the Prince of Darkness in a condition that could actually be termed _flustered_. Presumably his hard-earned witness interrogation skills are finally paying off. In no time he'll have a written, signed confession to every crime committed on the planet since the Garden of Eden.

"The theft of a piece of fruit is hardly damning," the Devil interrupts. "Besides, there's a statute of limitations. And Eve is not, shall we say, an ideal witness. No birth certificate. Had children out of wedlock. Terrible parent. Has trouble with authority figures. Talks to snakes. Zero credibility."

A pause. And the smile hasn't left Zeke's face. "You can read my mind," he says slowly, and, for some reason, this isn't as horrifying a thought as it really should be.

Even the Devil seems a little thrown off by his expression. "Yes? Honestly, Ezekiel, I've seen the expanse of time and space. I've probed the souls of angels and demons, nuns and childkillers. Some of them were the same people. What little goes on in your head is hardly worth the effort. Most of it's baseball, and the rest is sex."

"And I think about your ass," Zeke says, just as slowly as before. Then: "Why do you look… the way you do?" He waves a hand at the Devil's human form, swathed as it is in a black trenchcoat. Skinny, long hair, continually demonic grin. Never handsome so much as… _wrong_.

The Devil spreads his arms. "I am temptation, Ezekiel. I am junk food and mental health days, heroin and blow jobs. More than anything, though, I am what you want and cannot bear to have. I am the desire that will tear your heart out through your scrotum, and leave you begging for more."

Ezekiel's dick is starting to ache, never mind his head. "Are you lonely? Is this what this is? This entire mission, all of this restoring me to earth, popping up to nudge me, even appearing in my _bed_... Is this all some kind of _foreplay_?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ezekiel," the Devil snarls. "Sex has even less meaning for me than baseball. I have a greater need to be entertained than to be... than to reproduce."

To be…? What? His investigator's mind is two steps ahead. "And love? Everyone needs love."

He expects a sharp lecture about the fallacies of defining Lucifer himself by the standards of men. He expects a sudden hiss as air rushes to fill a vacuum.

What he gets is fire.

For a moment he thinks in shock that the entire library is ablaze, but that would be far too simple an explanation. The air scalds his throat, turns to acid in his lungs, and he realizes that the world is being consumed by flame. Hell. But not quite.

The Devil is bright here. He is far, far more than a dark-haired, sharp-featured man on American streets. He is light. He is infinite.

Zeke crashes into a world of snow and ice, his clothes burning, his body hissing with steam as his sweat rushes to evaporate. And then, as he lies there, neither scorched nor freezing, but a horrific, wonderful combination of the two, the Devil reaches out a hand to him.

"You cannot love me and live, Ezekiel," he says, and his voice is human, although it has no hint of the usual sarcasm Zeke has come to expect in its tone.

His hand, when Zeke grasps it, is warm and strong, and the Devil pulls him up to his feet with little effort at all.

Zeke, shivering and sweating, his head ringing and his eyes blinded, pushes back oily hair from the Devil's face, and kisses him. It hurts more than he could have believed possible, hurts more than kissing a furnace, and a deep, carnal need rushes through him so fast that he knows a human heart would have exploded in a second.

He swallows, surprised that he still has breath left, that his lungs haven't been burned away. "Then let's... Let's aim for entertainment," he says in a gasp. "Seems a little safer."

The Devil lunges forward, biting Zeke's lip in a mockery of a kiss as he snarls: "This isn't baseball, Ezekiel."

"No," Zeke agrees. "But it's the only game in town."


End file.
